1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a game apparatus and the like that advance by making a player character and an enemy character fight against each other. The invention more particularly relates to a game apparatus suitable for an arcade game machine.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, a trading card game (hereinafter, simply referred to a card game) among arcade games installed in a public space, such as a game center, is particularly popular. In such a card game, a character appearing in a game is decided according to a card that a person who plays the game owns. For this reason, not only pleasure of simply playing a game but also pleasure of collecting a card used in the game is expected. In addition, a battle play between friends having cards used in the same game is also a kind of pleasure.
Assuming that a point of view of a charging method is excluded, fun of a game itself is largely influenced rather by types of cards on hand and it does not make a big difference whether an arcade game machine is used as a platform or a home video game machine is used as the platform. Here, there was a card game realized by using a home video game machine, in which data included in a card is read by a bar code and a player character and an enemy character are made to fight against each other according to the read data. In this card game, only a character decided on the attack side can make an attack on a character of the other party (for example, refer to Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 7-121293 (paragraphs [0009] to [0012])).
It can also be seen in a battle in a RPG (role playing game) that the player character and the enemy character fight against each other and an attack is performed by turns on the basis of a turn system. However, at the time of an attack turn of the player character, there are many attack techniques that a player can select. During a period of time until the player selects an attack technique, the progress of a game is usually stopped. Here, in order to avoid that the waiting time becomes too long, and as a result, the progress of the game is stopped for a long period of time, there is a case in which a time limit is set when a player selects an attack technique and an attack technique set beforehand is automatically selected when there is no player's selection even if the time limit elapses. However, player's intention cannot be reflected in the progress of the game. In addition, since those described above are limited to an attack turn corresponding to the automatic selection, there is no subsequent influence on fun of the game.
Furthermore, in a game in which a player is made to compete by indicating a result of the game as a score in order to avoid that the waiting time for selecting an attack technique becomes too long, and as a result, the progress of the game is stopped for a long period of time, there is a case in which a high score is obtained as a time until the attack technique is selected is short. However, since the score does not affect the progress of the game, fun of the game is not increased at all. In addition, in a game in which a result of the game is not indicated by a score (there is a game that is not familiar to a score indication), the method described above is completely meaningless.
Moreover, in a game that adopts an ATB (active time battle), which determines a character to make an attack on the basis of whether or not an attack time set for each character has elapsed not on the basis of a turn, if an attack time of an enemy character elapses while waiting for the selection of an attack technique of a player character, there is a case in which the enemy character makes an attack even while waiting for the selection of the attack technique. In this case, it is preferable to select the attack technique of the player character as quickly as possible in order to increase the number of times in which the player character makes an attack and to decrease the number of times in which the player character is attacked from the enemy character. However, it only appears as a difference of the number of times of an attack whether the selection of the attack technique of the player character is speedy or late. Accordingly, it does not make a big difference on the fun of the game itself whether the selection of the attack technique of the player character is speedy or late. Moreover, in the above case, the selection of the attack technique is not urged in a positive way but the selection of the attack technique is only pressed in a negative way. Accordingly, an effect of an improvement in fun of a game seldom occurs.
Furthermore, since an arcade game machine that is adopted very often as a platform for executing a card game in recent years is supposed to be played by many and unspecified persons, it is not preferable for a specific person to monopolize the game machine to perform a game for a long time. The reason is that there are persons waiting for a turn of the game. Such problem described above was not considered at all in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 7-121293 since a home video game machine based on an assumption that an owner monopolizes the game machine to perform a game is used as a platform. However, even in the case in which the home video game machine is used as a platform, there may be persons waiting for a turn of a game if friends more than the number of persons that can play with one game machine gather.